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How to make the bankers scream: Robert Pollin, world's best obituarist of Clintonomics, explains it all for you. Do police states make people feel safer? Vicente Navarro on Franco's Spain, Cockburn on Ireland in the Fifties under the Catholic Hierarchy, Alevtina Rea on growing up in Brezhnev-time. Capitalism's true utopia? St Clair on the Pentagon's no-bid arms contracts. How's the press doing in Iraq? Patrick Cockburn tells all to Omar Waraich. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY  Today's Stories April 30 / May 1, 2005 Alexander
Cockburn Gabriel
Kolko Jennifer
Loewenstein Doug
Giebel Steven
Erlanger
April 29, 2005 W.
John Green Luke
Brothers Norman
Solomon M.
Junaid Alam Jackie
Corr Hunter
Greer Sharon
Smith Website
of the Day
April 28, 2005 Omar
Waraich Kevin
Zeese Dave
Lindorff Greg
Moses Toni
Solo Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Werther
April 27, 2005 John
Ross Joshua
Frank Ray
McGovern Mark
Donham Dan
Smith
April 26, 2005 Dave
Lindorff Alevtina
Rea Greg
Moses Joshua
Frank Diana
Johnstone
April 25, 2005 Uri
Avnery Alison
Weir Lee
Sustar Leonardo
Boff Gary
Leupp
April 23 / 24, 2005 Alexander
Cockburn Gary
Leupp James
Petras Harry
Browne Fred
Gardner Ron
Jacobs Elizabeth
Schulte Chris
Floyd
April 22, 2005 Saul
Landau Kevin
Zeese Joshua
Frank Mike
Whitney Michael
Flynn Lee
Sustar Website
of the Day
April 21, 2005 Bill
Quigley Dave
Lindorff Jason
Leopold Kathleen
Christison
April 20, 2005 John Ross Kevin Zeese Uri Avnery Website of the Day
April 19, 2005 Jean-Guy Allard Dave Lindorff Neve Gordon Brian Concannon, Jr Murray Hudson Frank B. Ford Monty Python Michael Dickinson Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
Linda Schade
/ Kevin Zeese John Ross Brian McKenna Mike Whitney Patrick Cockburn Dave Zirin Eli Stephens Harry Browne Website of
the Day
April 16 / 17, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Mark Dow Omar Waraich Robert Buzzanco Sherry Wolf Fred Gardner Ron Jacobs Mark Weisbrot John Pardon Yoshie Furuhashi Mike Roselle Ralph Nader Ramzy Baroud Jackson Thoreau Michael Dickinson Richard Neville Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
April 15, 2005 Brian Cloughley Bill Glahn Mickey Z. Stephanie McMillan Josh Mahan David Russitano Jorge Mariscal Rodolfo "Corky"
Gonzales Tom Reeves
April 14, 2005 Karyn Strickler Pat Williams Jessica Pupovac Joshua Frank Jerzy Mankowski Talli Naumann Antony Loewenstein Virginia Rodino Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen Website of the Day
April 13, 2005 Maria Carrión Mike Whitney Terry Jones Dave Lindorff Nathaniel Livingston, Jr. Kurt Nimmo Don Fitz Tom Crumpacker JG Jack McCarthy Kevin Zeese Jeffrey St.
Clair
April 12, 2005 John Wheat
Gibson Kevin Zeese Alan Farago Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Nelson P. Valdes Dave Zirin Website of the Day
April 11, 2005 Tom Barry Saul Landau Monique Dols Phil Gasper Mike Whitney Edwin Krales Paul de Rooij Website of the Day
April 9 / 10, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair William A. Cook Gary Leupp Alan Maass Laura Carlsen Joe DeRaymond Nikolas Kozloff Dave Lindorff Greg Moses Fred Gardner Justin Smith Ron Jacobs M. Junaid Alam Ira Kay Elizabeth Schulte Jackie Corr Christopher
Brauchli Leslie A. Fiedler Ben Tripp Poets Basement Website of
the Weekend
April 8, 2005 Rob Eshelman Hom Raj Acharya
/ Sally Acharya Felice Pace Neve Gordon Mike Whitney Don Monkerud Adam Engel Vicente Navarro Website of the Day
April 7, 2005 Joshua Frank Yitzhak Laor Alan Maass Steven Sherman Dave Lindorff Gerry Adams John Chuckman Michael Dickinson John Ross Website of the Day
April 6, 2005 Peter Camejo Kevin Wehr Matt Vidal Robert Creeley
/ Bruce Jackson Nikolas Kozloff Sea Shepherd Crew Brenda Child Terry Eagleton David Swanson Cindy Ellen
Hill Website of
the Day
April 5, 2005 Jim Connolly Paul Craig
Roberts Gary Leupp Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Dan Smith Mark Engler Richard Oxman Greg Moses Website of the Day
April 4, 2005 Kevin Zeese Paul Craig Roberts Larry Birns
/ Sarah Schaffer Karyn Strickler Joshua Frank Michael Dickinson Surendra R.
Devkota Derrick O'Keefe Uri Avnery Website of the Day
April 2 / 3, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Stan Goff John Ross Saul Landau Robert Creeley Mike Roselle Joshua Frank Fred Gardner Greg Moses Fran Quigley Kurt Nimmo Nicole Colson Chris Genovali Alan Farago Lawrence Reichard Ben Tripp Avantika Regmi Lee Sustar Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
April 1, 2005 Tom Barry Rahul Mahajan Charlie Cray
/ Jim Vallette Dave Lindorff Zeynep Toufe Suzan Mazur Michael Dickinson Stan Cox Ra Ravishankar Daniel Wolff
March 31, 2005 Sharon Smith Ron Jacobs Tariq Ali Michael Dickinson Kanak Mani
Dixit Mitchell Zimmerman Xuan-Trang
Ho Dave Zirin Joe Bageant Jeff Halper Website of
the Day
Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Subcomandante
Marcos Norman Finkelstein Steve Niva Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams Steve
J.B. Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber Wendell
Berry CounterPunch
Wire Cindy
Corrie Gore Vidal Francis Boyle
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Weekend Edition CounterPunch DiaryMarla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and "Credibility"; Censored: How an NRA man found the Long Lost Ivory Billed Woodpecker; Fatal Connexion: Roy Orbison and Laura Bush; Pickett's Failed ChargeBy ALEXANDER COCKBURN New Orleans, Louisiana Whatever sour emotions I entertained while reading accounts of the funeral of Marla Ruzicka had nothing really to do with the death on April 16 of a brave young woman in Baghdad. On many accounts and I have had a detailed conversation with a close friend of Marla's whose judgment I respect she was an idealistic person whose prime political flaw seems to have been the very forgivable one of naivety. Both in Afghanistan and Iraq, in furtherance of her humanitarian schemes, Marla Ruzicka elected a stance of studious neutrality in ascribing responsibility for the victims of US bombings and ground fire. This pursuit of "credibility" certainly yielded its ironic reward in the political range of those who publicly mourned her. A US senator Barbara Boxer attended Ruzicka's funeral in Lakeport, northern California. Bob Herbert of the New York Times poured out an emotional column honoring Ruzicka. So did Robert L. Pollock, a writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial page. " America has lost a peerless and unique ambassador," Pollock wrote on April 19. "[S]he stood out from the crowd of journalists and self-proclaimed humanitarians--far too many of whom believed their mission was to bear witness to an American misadventure in Iraq that would, and should, fail." The sourness in my soul stemmed from a contrast. Almost exactly two years earlier, on March 16, 2003, another brave young woman in a foreign land lost her life, not to a suicide bomber, but under the blade of a 47-ton bulldozer made in America by the Caterpillar company specifically for house demolitions and driven by an Israeli soldier. Maybe, in the last seconds of his life, that suicide bomber in Baghdad never even saw Ruzicka. The soldier in Gaza surely saw Corrie, clearly visible in her fluorescent orange jacket, and rolled the bulldozer blade right over her. No US senator attended Rachel's
funeral after her parents brought her home to the state of Washington.
Both US senators ran in the opposite direction. Later the Corries
disclosed that after their return to the US with their daughter's
body, they contacted their US Senators, Patty Murray and Maria
Cantwell, both Democrats, and told them how their daughter had
been deliberately murdered while peacefully demonstrating against
house demolitions, which are violations of international law.
Murray and Cantwell, the Corries recall, were quick with expressions
of outrage and promises of investigations. The Corries never
heard from Murray or Cantwell again. As Professor Steve Niva of Evergreen State College in Olympia wrote on this site shortly after Corrie's death, "There is no evidence that Dr. Samir Nasrallah, whose house Rachel was defending, or anyone in this neighborhood were concealing any tunnels or were engaged in any attacks on Israelis. The Israeli army doesn't even make this insupportable claim. His house was being demolished because, like dozens of others that have been bulldozed in Hay Salaam, his home was near the 'Apartheid Wall' Israel was building. Moreover, the ISM has a policy of only protecting homes that are not suspected to be involved in tunnel activities." Niva duly received a torrent
of e-mailed abuse. Mother Jones ran a 7,000 word attack on Corrie and ISM, later convincingly demonstrated by Olympia's Phan Nguyen to have been plagiarized from extreme right sites and sources. Nor was there measured lamentation from the Wall Street Journal's editorial page which surpassed itself in foam-flecked savagery in a piece by Ruhama Shattan, which managed to blame Corrie for the bombing death of the State Department officials that occurred in Gaza in October, 2004! Shattan's piece had already run in the Jerusalem Post and actually prompted the press attache in the US embassy in Tel Aviv, Paul Patin, to write a letter to the Post denouncing it as "hateful incitement" and "disgusting abuse of the anniversary of the death of this American citizen". Maybe this letter is what prompted the WSJ's editorial page editor, Paul Gigot to see Shattan's diatribe as suitable material for his pages. Marla Ruzicka decided to work within the system, as they say. Maybe, given the aims of her organization, CIVIC, that was an appropriate choice. I'm not inclined to pass judgment on that. The "system" duly mourned and honored her. Rachel Corrie saw that the "system", with all its innumerable and fraudulent roadmaps, negotiated solutions, Oslo frameworks, processes of peace and so forth had no stopped, nay, was encouraging the daily outrages of demolitions of Palestinian homes and kindred barbarities. Corrie stood in the path of that system and died, and her murder was covered up by Israel and by the government of her own country. Across the thirty years that I have written about the vast injustice done to Palestinians by successive Israeli governments, condoned and paid for by the US, I have read a thousand admonitions to support what peace plan was in train, to espouse solutions with "credibility". And here we are now, when all the peace plans and roadmaps stand definitively revealed as the frauds they always were. Any imagined evacuation of Israeli settlements from Gaza is pure distraction. The story lies in the new settlements stretching out from East Jerusalem, amputating any conceivably viable Palestinian state. In this enterprise, there's no "case for Israel" beyond violent, illegal occupation and eviction. Two years after her murder I honor Rachel Corrie and enquire of those supposedly reasonable voices on the Zionist side of the aisle here in the United States, What have you got to say for yourselves now?
That Ivory-Billed Woodpecker and the National Rifle Association The big news in the bird world is of course the sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker in southeastern Arkansas. The last official date and I stress "official" was back in 1944. Other than that, the stylish bird, with its black body, white wingtips, ivory bill and crown of red feathers, lived on mostly in endless reproductions of Audubon's print. Reading the New York Times or the story from Associated Press, you'd think that Big Woody's first convincingly reported sighting in sixty years came on February 11, 2004, when Gene Sparling, on a river trip in his kayak, reported he'd seen the ivory-billed woodpecker in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, in southeastern Arkansas. Not so, as was made clear in an excellent story by Bob Marshall, outdoors editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and published April 29, the same day as the NYT got it all wrong. In fact there had been numerous unconfirmed sightings of the ivory-bill since 1944. Then five years ago a student from at Louisiana State University, David Kulivan by name, from Tarrytown, across the Mississippi from New Orelans, went turkey hunting in Louisiana's Pearl River Basin. He saw the ivory-billed woodpecker and his report provoked large-scale efforts to ratify his sighting. Kulivan's credibility took some dents when no confirmation followed, but among those who believed him was Van Remsen, curator of birds at LSU's natural science museum. He knew that Kulivan had been into the swamp, not on the edge of the forest, like most birders. "That's one reason I found David Kulivan credible. He was hunting turkeys deep in a swamp, far away from the spots birders normally go. That's why I helped organize that search." Then in 2004 Gene Sparlings went canoing in the Refuge in southerneastern Arkansas, in the same sort of habitat, and saw a large woodpecker fly towards him and land in a tree nearby. Two weeks later Tim Gallagher of Living Bird magazine and Bobby Harrison, an associate prof at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, went back to the Cache River Refuge and espied the ivory bill. As the Times Picayune's Marshall writes it, Gallagher told him, "Bobby sat down on a log, put his face in his hands and began to sob, saying 'I saw an ivory bill. I saw an ivory bill'." (In the New York Times's constipated prose, offered in this instance by James Gorman, this comes out as, "Mr Gallagher said Mr Harrison was struck by the reality of the discovery and began sobbing, repeating, 'I saw an ivory bill.'") Now, why has Kulivan disappeared from the offical story as told by the NYT and AP? First of all, young Kulivan was hunting, gun in hand, and thus does not belong in the official environmentalist narrative, as the story will be promulgated down the years as a fundraiser for the big environmental groups. Secondly, these days David Kulivan works in Washington DC as youth programs coordinator for the NRA. He pronounces himself delighted that his sighting has been confirmed and told the Times Picayune, "I don't feel any personal vindication because I don't have any need for that. What I'm thinking is that this is a powerful statement about the resilience of nature." That kind of talk would never fly at the big environmental groups, whose fundraising thrives on prospective extinction, not on nature bouncing back. Incidentally, Kulivan added that part of the lesson has been to "underscore the importance of conserving bottomland hardwoods." The reason why the fortunes of the ivory-billed woodpecker plummeted down the centuries since the white settlers came to the bottomland forests of the lower Mississippi is that it depends on large beetle larvae from species of beetles that attack recently dead trees. From the Civil War on there were plenty of dead trees in the lower Mississippi Valley but they went out on carts and later trucks as lumber. Fewer beetle larvae, fewer birds. God help Big Woody now. As Jeffrey St Clair remarked to me yesterday, "Wait until the Ballona-style Visitors Center opens... The Woodies would be better off under Wild Turkey Federation management."
The last time I might have seen Big Woody may have been in a little exhibition of Audubon prints in the Museum of the Southwest, in Midland, Texas, the physical and intellectual crucible from whose creative inferno sprang George Bush and the true spiritual leader of the nation, Laura Bush. As I wrote a few years ago after I drove through Midland, the museum had up on its walls Audubon's prints of Texas animals from his last book, "Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America," published between 1845 and 1848. He died three years later. They were marvelous, and some of them, such as the ocelot and jaguar (now extinct in Texas), are so lively looking that you'd swear Audubon had sketched them from life. But, in fact, by that time in his life, Audubon rarely moved from his house on the Hudson, to which specimens arrived in various stages of putrefaction, sometimes pickled in rum. Next to the Audubon room were dashing exhibits by young artists from the Wirral peninsula, in northwest England. I bought a Wirral beach scene photographed by Geraldine Hughes and went on my way, wondering why Midland and Wirral, of all places, are sister cities. The connexion was probably because Roy Orbison toured with Gerry and the Pacemakers, who sang "Ferry Across the Mersey". If you take their advice you get to the Wirral peninsula. Orbison had strong connexions with both Midland and adjacent Odessa, hometown of Orbison's first wife Claudette. Returning to Texas from Nashville after breaking with Sam Phillips, Orbison began writing with Joe Melson, who led a local group called the Cavaliers in Midland. Roy married Claudette, though the couple was divorced in November, 1964. They remarried the following August. In 1966, Orbison was riding motorcycles with Claudette when a truck driver pulled out in front of her. She died an hour later at the age of twenty-five. The Curse of Midland. It was three years earlier, in 1963 that Laura Bush then 17, driving along in her '62 Chevy on the outskirts of Midland, ran a stop sign and killed a young man. The 1963 accident report says that Laura, then 17, ran a stop sign in the Texas crash that struck the Corvair of 17-year old Michael Douglas. He was thrown from the car and broke his neck. Some accounts have claimed Michael and Laura had been dating. Laura was with a 17-year old girl friend at the time. It was a clear night shortly after 8 p.m. on Nov. 6, 1963. The speed limit for the road was 55. The speed of Laura Bush's car was illegible on the report. A photograph retrieved in 2000 by the National Inquirer showed the sightlines at the crossing of the two county roads to have been not obscured by trees. It was just the flat surface of the Permian basin, from whose oil deposits the wealth of Midland derives. I write these lines in the Richelieu Hotel in New Orleans, looking out at the thundershowers and hoping the rain will clear off in time for us all to head out to the race track and hear Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm. So much goes back to Sam Philipps, for whom Ike was a talent scout. As Michael Neumann wrote to me the other day, "Ike played piano on Rocket-88, often and not foolishly considered the first rock and roll song. It was done by his group, the Kings of Rhythm, whose vocalists included not only Jackie Brenston (on said rocket) but Clayton Love. People sometimes talk about a track being 'searing'. A couple of his numbers really deserve it. Ike's band did most of its recording around 1956 and it makes Tina sound like Patti Page."
Lamenting Pickett's Failed Charge Now this reprise on the Civil War and subsequent developments, from Wes Baker in Alabama.
Footnote: the opening item
in this column first appeared in the print edition of The Nation
that went to press last Wednesday.
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